Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/17/2025

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  

  This business has now regarded my request to remain in contact with 1 person towards the resolution. This single- person method has made it possible to finally make headway in reviewing and resolution of all the many issues. We're able to work in tandem and see what could at some point be happening to another customer too, which I know will also help them to help others.

  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
  
  Regards,
  
  ******* ****
  
   

  
  t answering a thing about the phone and just said they would try to get my email to Supervisor Will. They refuse to address direct questions, and its killed my ability to have my website available and usable. Its now 6 hours later - nothing. Its become a psychological game: say 1 thing, do another. **Requesting money to be paid back for site purchase last year that had to be wiped + recent renewal cost on a site that can't edit the homd page only (considering loss of 12 hours in just this week alone.) I need to turn to another hosting company for this site or give up the site on their hosting because it keeps going back to "uneditable" again and again.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/21/2025

  Thanks very much for contacting us and sharing your experience.
  
  It looks as if you've been in touch with our Technical Support team and earlier today the disputed amount was refunded back to your credit card.
  
  If there's anything else that we can do for you, please don't hesitate to let us know.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/16/2025

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have never enabled auto-renewal on either of my domains. I leave this setting disabled to maintain control over renewals.
  
  Your chat supervisor provided records showing auto-renewal was disabled, then re-enabled, which I did not do. The change from Yes to Ask to Yes makes no logical senseno one would disable it only to immediately enable it again. This strongly suggests the change was made without my authorization.
  
  I never intended to renew this domain, yet DreamHost charged me one month before its expiration date. No other registrar *** used has ever charged so far in advance.
  
  Regarding my refund request, DreamHost is the only registrar Ive encountered that refuses refunds under these circumstances. Other companies have refunded payments even after renewal, but DreamHost has chosen not to, despite having the ability to do so. This makes it clear that:
  1. Your company is so desperate to keep $26.95 that you claim a refund would cause financial strain.
  2. You do not value your customers or their business.
  
  I will be transferring my domain elsewhere and advising my clients to avoid DreamHost. Your handling of this issue has already cost you my business and will cost you more.
  
  I am formally requesting details of the ** address and timestamps related to the enabling/disabling of auto-renewal when my domain was transferred to DreamHost on April 16, 2024.
  
  I will continue to escalate this matter until my refund is processed. Please provide a prompt response.
  
  ng practices. I believe this is a clear case of deceptive business conduct that should be investigated.Desired Resolution:I expect DreamHost to fully refund the unauthorized charge for my domain renewal and ensure that their billing practices align with fair consumer protection policies.I appreciate the BBBs attention to this matter and look forward to your assistance in resolving this dispute.Sincerely,****** ********** ************ **************

  Business Response

  Date: 03/17/2025

  Thanks for contacting us.
  
  We wanted to clarify a few points.
  
  You signed up for service with us on April 16, 2024.  During the signup process you chose to register the "*************" domain name.
  
  Per our Domain Registration Terms (***********************************************************************), which all customers agree to when signing up for service:
  "Customer's new and transferred-in domain registrations will be set to automatically renew upon expiration."
  
  While this domain may have been set to automatically renew at signup, you also had the power to cancel automatic renewal from a setting within your account control panel at any time.
  
  In addition, our billing system emailed you on 2/14/25 to alert you to the impending automatic renewal of this domain name on 3/14/25.  It then emailed you a second time on 3/9/25 to remind you that this renewal was imminent.  Both of these emails contained direct links to disable the automatic renewal of this domain well in advance of its renewal date.
  
  According to our records you took no action until our billing system emailed you a third time, on 3/16/25, to notify you that the domain had been renewed.  At that point you reached out to our support team to request a refund.
  
  There is a cost associated with domain name registrations and renewals imposed on us by individual domain registries.  For that reason, domain name registrations and renewals are unfortunately non-refundable, per our Terms of Service (**************************************************************):
  "Domain registrations (including the value of any used free domain registrations included with the plan) are not refundable under any circumstances."
  
  It appears you've since disabled the automatic renewal for "**************," so as things stand now it will *not* be renewed again next year.
  
  We're sorry we can't be more helpful in this case, ******.  Please let our Customer Support team know if there's anything else that we can do for you.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/19/2025

  Just to reiterate, our Domain Registration Terms make clear that "Customer's new and transferred-in domain registrations will be set to automatically renew upon expiration."  This setting is established automatically when you add a domain name to your account, after which point you do have the ability to disable it. ***********************************************************************
  
  This renewal should not have come as a surprise.  We did email you twice to alert you to your domain's renewal date before it happened and included information to disable the renewal of this domain in those messages.  You took no action to change your domain's renewal behavior after receiving these messages.
  
  Domain registrations and renewals represent a hard cost for domain registrars like ourselves, and for that reason we are unable to provide refunds for them.  This domain name is yours to use for the duration of its current registration.  This means you can host it with any other web host if you'd like.  You can also transfer its registration to any other registrar to handle future renewals if you'd prefer.
  
  To host this domain elsewhere: *******************************************************************************************************************
  To transfer your domain registration to another registrar:  *********************************************************************************************************************************
  
  Again, we're sorry we can't be more helpful.  Please let us know if you need any further assistance.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/14/2025

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have been a loyal customer since ******** years!). I have always subscribed to their unlimited plan and somehow in 2023, sneakily added a new $15/month VPS account (a service that Digital Ocean and AWS charges $4 to $5 for).I want to re-iterate that I did not create this VPS, nor do I want it. They just started charging me. I only found out when I was looking at my credit card bill closely ($345 so far). You might say it's not my fault for not paying closer attention but businesses aren't supposed to operate this way - charge for services users did not ask for and do not need.

  Business Response

  Date: 02/18/2025

  Thanks for contacting us.  And thanks for being a DreamHost customer for so long!
  
  It appears MySQL VPS was added to your account automatically when your databases exceeded a 3GB limit, per our Unlimited Policy: **************************************************************
  
  I see that our support team has issued an account credit for the last three months of charges as a courtesy.  They have also provided instructions for cancelling your *********** from within your account control panel.
  
  Please let us know if there's anything else that we can do for you.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/08/2025

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have multiple time and multiple way both by phone and in writing to get them to cancel the subscription. They will not respond

  Business Response

  Date: 01/08/2025

  In looking through your email history with our support agents, I can confirm that they have provided instructions to close your account several times and have responded to all of your messages.  They provided you with the information to close your account on February 6, 2024, February 7th, 2024, and again today, January 8th, 2025.
  
  They have also provided you with a link to our knowledgebase that describes the account closure process in detail:  *************************************************************************************************
  
  Please note: Your DreamHost account *is still active* because you've not yet taken steps to close it.
  
  Again, you will need to click the "Begin Account Closure" button on the "Manage Account" section of your DreamHost control panel to close your account.  ***********************************************************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/13/2024

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  
  MESSAGE FROM BUSINESS:
  
  Just to clarify, our offer of free hosting for non profit groups extends to the base hosting plan only.  i **************** made no request to you about "additional services" that would necessitate these additional charges.  .The account holder is still responsible for any additional charges which may be incurred on the account.  We are not responsible or your arbitrary billing actions in which you presume to provide a service that you are clearly not providing.
  
  In any case, these charges should not have come as a surprise as emails are sent to the account holder when new services are added to the account in advance of any charges.  The "service" that you claim is a surprise as it doesn't exist.  This issue has not been resolved due to your refusal to respond to my emails.  Instead, you block them, and claim that you don't recognize the email or reject them outright.

  Had your support team responded to my previous inquiries, I would not have contacted the BBB and saw that your organization has erroneously billed others for which they have had to use the BBB as a mediator.
  
  Our support team will be able to assist if you reach out from the "Contact Support" section of your account control panel at ******************************************************; Previous emails to them prove that this statement is false.  Otherwise, I would not be taking my precious time to respond to you when I could be doing other things.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 11/15/2024

   It is interesting that you acknowledge that I have attempted to contact support vs I have been blocked and or advised that I am contacting you from an unknown email address and to log into the support portal.
  
  Unfortunately, I have no record of receiving those emails at the dates provided but received your bills.  I contacted your organization about these bills but still don't understand why I would be billed for a landing page that was already in existence before I signed on with your service.  This was predicated upon the service being free.  Once the service ceased to be free, for whatever reason it has ceased to be free, as what you are saying makes no sense to a non tech savvy person, I asked if you would remove the monthly service that is causing the fee.  I never received a response for the request.  Being that I am not tech savvy and was and am currently dealing with medical issues at this time, the website was created using Godaddy.   I find it hard to believe that they do not have the latest tech for one to create a website that meets industry standards but again, I'm not tech savvy but asked in the emails that you rejected and or refused to acknowledge that you remove this service.  Since this site is still under Godaddy, your threats of downtime make no sense for a landing page to experience down time.   
  
  After no action was taken, we then contacted you again on September 8th to inform you that PHP Extended Support had been added to your account to prevent downtime at a rate of $5 per month.     Again, not knowing what this is does not make me acknowledge that the organization owes you.  . If anything, you adding support to an account is unauthorized action on your part and it is not our responsibility to pay for services that you took it upon yourself to add, when we were unaware and ignorant of said service, while having not a website but a landing page.   Please reverse the billing.

   

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  Business Response

  Date: 11/13/2024

  Just to clarify, our offer of free hosting for non profit groups extends to the base hosting plan only.  The account holder is still responsible for any additional charges which may be incurred on the account.
  
  In any case, these charges should not have come as a surprise as emails are sent to the account holder when new services are added to the account in advance of any charges.
  
  Our support team will be able to assist if you reach out from the "Contact Support" section of your account control panel at ************************************************

  Business Response

  Date: 11/14/2024

  By contacting our support team from the "Contact Support" section of your account control panel - and not via a direct email message - we are able to verify that you have logged into the account control panel and are an authorized contact for this account.
  
  We first contacted you on July 14th, and again on August 11th, to inform you of upcoming changes to your account necessitated by the "end of life" of PHP 7.4.  In those emails we advised you to update the version of PHP used on your website to avoid these charges, and provided several steps for doing so.
  
  After no action was taken, we then contacted you again on September 8th to inform you that PHP Extended Support had been added to your account to prevent downtime at a rate of $5 per month.  We also gave instructions for removing the charge at that time.
  
  Please note that these messages were sent to the email address that you previously provided to DreamHost as the primary contact for your account with us.  You can review all of these messages from the "Support History" section of your account control panel at **********************************************************************************
  
  If you no longer have access to the email address you've listed on your DreamHost account and would like to change it (or add additional addresses) you can do so from your account's control panel at ***********************************************************************
  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/11/2024

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Account number is *****.

  I have been a customer for 21 years and have been on the annual plan for **all 21 of those years.** I've paid the annual plan rate for service up until November 18. I only clicked on the button to change to monthly billing because I am disputing the "free" domain registration that you're now trying to charge me for...and I did not want to incur an additional year's subscription fee. At no point on the interface to switch plans does it indicate that making a change will "cancel" your current plan; I assumed that it would kick in for the next billing cycle, i.e. on November 18.

  The "free" domain registration interface is extremely deceptive. Dreamhost constantly throws "free" domain registrations at you. In this case I had one "free" domain registered with DH, and before closing my account I saw that there was a "RENEW" button next to my domain with a field reading "$0.00" next to it. So I figured well I can at least keep this domain here for another year, since it's going to be free. At no point is any indication given that renewing this "free" service will incur a demand to pay for the exact same "free" service if and when you close your account.

  This seems ripe for a class action lawsuit.

  ank anyone for years of doing business.

  Business Response

  Date: 11/13/2024

  Hi ****,
  
  We would be happy to investigate this further for you, but we'll need some additional information to locate your account.
  
  If you can provide us with the email address listed in the contact information of your DreamHost account, your ******************** account number, or the domain name that you're disputing, we'll be able to dig in and see what our options may be.

  Business Response

  Date: 11/14/2024

  The offer of a free domain registration has always been accompanied by a paid hosting plan.  When you cancel a hosting plan, you are then responsible for the cost to renew the domain.
  
  While you may have renewed the domain with DreamHost, you can host it with any other host of your choosing: *******************************************************************************************************************
  
  You also have the option of transferring its registration and renewal duties to any other registrar as well: *********************************************************************************************************************************
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 11/19/2024

  Whatever the terms of service or plan details offered by Dreamhost, the user interface completely obfuscates the obligation to pay for a renewed domain at the point of closing an account.

  When I began the process of closing my Dreamhost plan, one of the first screens presented suggests that you can retain domain name hosting at ** even after closing your web and email hosting plan. So I took a look, and saw that I still had one domain registered. Next to that domain was noted its expiration date, a blue button labeled RENEW, and a cost of $0.00. NORMALLY, THIS DOLLAR AMOUNT SHOWS YOU THE COST TO RENEW. There is absolutely no indication that clicking that RENEW button with a zero dollar amount next to it will incur any charges to the user.

  In the end I closed my account at ******************** and I am not looking back. I ate the $20 registration fee and STILL transferred the domain away from Dreamhost to another registrar that is much cheaper.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/29/2024

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I do not accept the businesses response. They can continue to state that they reached out to me until their blue in the face. I never received any of these ridiculous notifications. I contacted them the day I received an authorization on my credit card, and they still refused to cancel my alleged "auto renewal" account. I didn't use their service whatsoever over the last 8 months. Nonetheless, **************** has refunded the $19.99 charge, and I will move on. It's sad that this company forces their customers to take extreme action.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/30/2024

  The renewal reminder email was sent to the contact address on your DreamHost account.  We encourage customers to keep their contact information up to date so that they receive important account notifications in a timely manner.  Checking this email address regularly would have given you a chance to cancel the renewal before it happened.
  
  Our billing manager's statement remains true.  Domain registrations are highly regulated and represent a non-refundable fixed cost that we are required to pass on to customers.
  
  We can confirm that your domain name has been renewed through 10-29-2025.  You are welcome to continue to host this domain name with us, however you also have the option of transferring it to any web host on the internet and hosting it there.  You also have the option of transferring the domain registration itself to another domain registrar for any future renewals.
  
  We note also that this domain name is currently set to "auto renew," so it will again renew itself in October of 2025.  If you do *not* want to renew this domain again, you should disable the "Auto Renew" option from your account control panel at ***************************************************************************

  Business Response

  Date: 10/01/2024

  You can view a complete history of all email messages sent from DreamHost to the email address you've listed as your primary contact from the "Support/Support History" section of your DreamHost account control panel: *************************************************************************
  
  There you will see that:
  - We first contacted you on August 29th to let you know about an upcoming domain registration renewal charge.
  - We reached out on September 21st to remind you that your domain would renew on September 28th.
  - We sent a third email September 28th to inform you that your domain had been successfully renewed.
  
  Please note that you do still have an active DreamHost account.  As mentioned in our last message, your domain registration is active and is set to auto-renew in October of 2025.  If you do *not* want to renew this domain again, you should disable the "Auto Renew" option from your account control panel at ***************************************************************************

  Customer Answer

  Date: 10/03/2024

  The company keeps stating that they sent me an email that Innever received. Where are the confirmations that show that I received them. Again, they keep stating data from their own information. That does prove anything. Again, I notified them immediately the same day that they charged my card. I have not used their services in over 5 months. Im not waistline my time. **************** already credited my account. Im just trying to warn others of their business practices. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/03/2024

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  For over a month, we have had zero response from technical service to regain access to our account. It was created years ago with an email address that we no longer have access to. Dreamhost has never responded and we have no other way of regaining access.Not having access to our domain (www.adacp.com) is costing us a lot of money. Myself, my partner and an assistant have all spent hours trying to regain access to our account and ******************** has never been responsive at all. We need to get access back and have no way of doing it. We are literally being held hostage. We need to regain access.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/09/2024

  It appears you've been in contact with our technical support team about this issue.  Per their last message to you on September 3rd, we have reached out to the current account holder - at an email address you've provided - for verification.  As you are not listed on the account as a contact, we're limited in the amount of access we can grant and information that we can provide about this account.
  
  Please let us know if there's anything else that we can do for you.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/31/2024

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
  
  Regards,
  
  *****************************
  
   
  I demand that DreamHost immediately refund all unauthorized charges and take corrective action to prevent this from happening to others. Their handling of this situation has been deeply disappointing, and I will not hesitate to warn others about their predatory billing practices.If this issue is not resolved to my satisfaction, I will pursue further action, including seeking legal advice and filing additional complaints with consumer protection agencies.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/09/2024

  It appears you've been in contact with our technical support team and have already worked with them to resolve this issue.  If there's anything else that we can do for you, please let us know.